The present invention relates to a new and improved machine for manufacture of drawer sides in a continuous operation, from a strip of wood or the like. At the present time, a considerable amount of wooden furniture is produced from composite material such as particle board and chipboard, as well as from solid wood, and the term "wood " as used herein is intended to cover all of these wood-like materials.
A drawer for a desk or chest or other piece of furniture typically is formed of two sides, a front, a back, and a bottom. A typical drawer side 10 is shown in FIG. 2, and comprises a short piece of wood with a rounded and smooth edge 11, and a longitudinal groove 12 parallel to the lower edge. The front and rear edges 13, 14 may dovetailed or otherwise modified for attaching the front and rear of the drawer, and the groove 12 provides a recess for supporting the drawer bottom.
In the conventional drawer side manufacturing machine, a long strip of wood is fed in at one end, the outer edges are rounded, the strip is cut into two strips and drawer grooves are cut into the two strips, and the outside edges are sanded. Typically the two long strips are further treated by painting or other surface finishing of the surfaces and finally are cut to the desired lengths.
A cross-section of an incoming strip 16 is shown in FIG. 1a, a cross-section of the strip with the rounded edges 11, 11' is shown in FIG. 1b, and cross-sections of the two strips 10, 10' is shown in FIG. 1c, with the initial strip sawn into two pieces at 17 and with the grooves 12, 12' provided in the side strips 10, 10' respectively.
The conventional machines have a high production rate, and an order for drawer sides can be produced in a relatively short time. The next order for drawer sides usually requires a different position for the cut which separates the initial strip into two strips, and different settings for the spacing and depth of the saw blades which produce the bottom grooves 12, 12'. This change requires shutting down the machine, removing the existing saw blades and installing a new set of blades with new spacings. While this operation is straight forward, it is time consuming and the entire machine is out of production during the blade changing and adjusting operation.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved machine for producing drawer sides which permits a very rapid change in saw blades so that the machine downtime required for change of set up is reduced to a minimum. It is a particular object of the invention to provide such a machine incorporating two slitting units, each capable of mounting a plurality of saw blades of various sizes and with various spacings, with the slitting units being interchangeable in the production stream of the machine. An additional object is to provide such a drawer side manufacturing machine with a transverse carriage formed as a portion of the frame, with the two slitting units mounted on this carriage and with each slitting unit slidableinto and out of the production line on the machine.
With this arrangement, a set of blades for an order can be installed and adjusted on a slitting unit while the preceding order is being run on the machine. Then the downtime between orders for different drawer side configurations is only the time needed for sliding one slitting unit out of the operative position and sliding the other slitting unit into the operative position.
Other objects, advantages, features and results will more fully appear in the course of the following description.